CORBICULA
Nature, gathered by bees
ფუტკრის კალათა
Hive 14 · Acacia · 2–19 June 2026
Discover the basketHive 14 · Acacia · 2–19 June 2026
Fourteen hives at 1,240 metres on the northern edge of one valley. Cold spun, sieved once, and poured into glass the same week it leaves the frame — nothing heated, nothing corrected, nothing blended in from anyone else's season.
The name
Corbis, in Latin, is a wicker basket. Corbicula is the diminutive — a little basket. It is the name given to a polished hollow on the outer face of a honey bee's hind leg, and to nothing else in the language.
She fills it four hundred times a day. Only one family of bees has these baskets at all; the rest carry pollen loose in their body hair. We took the name because the carrying is hers, and because the jar is the end of a journey that begins on that leg.
The outer face of her hind shin is flattened, polished and very slightly hollow. That hollow is the corbicula. It is smooth where the rest of her is furred.
A curved comb of stiff hairs runs around the rim and cages the load from three sides. Nothing sticky holds the pellet in — the geometry does.
One long bristle rises from the centre of the hollow and pins the pellet against the leg. It is the reason a full basket survives a two-kilometre flight home.
Between shin and foot sits a small hinged plate. She combs pollen forward from her body, wets it with a little nectar, and each closing of the hinge pumps one dab up into the basket.
About fifteen milligrams a side when full, near a million grains. It carries the colour of whatever was in flower that hour, which is why a jar of pollen is never one shade.
ფუტკრის კალათა the bee's basket
The carrying is done before we arrive. Ours is the work at the three points where we cannot stay out of the way: the frame, the glass, and the resin.
The frame
The frames are lifted at dawn while the hive is still cool and spun without heat. One pass through a 400 micron sieve takes out wax and nothing else. Because nothing is warmed, nothing can be corrected afterwards — so the honey in the jar is the honey the season actually made, thin years and thick years alike.
Cold spun Sieved once at 400 micron
The glass
We use thick-walled glass because it holds nothing back into the honey and it comes back to us to be used again. Each jar is washed, dried overnight, filled from the tap, then sealed with wax while it is still soft. The seal is pressed by hand, which is why no two of them sit exactly straight.
Returnable glass Numbered by hand
The resin
Propolis is the resin bees seal the hive with, and there is never much of it. It comes off the frames in slivers with a blade, collected through the whole season and left in alcohol for six weeks before it is any use. Ten drops in water is the whole instruction, and a winter is about one bottle.
March–October Six weeks steeping
If something is wrong with a jar, you are writing to the person who filled it.
Harvest 2026
Each one is priced for what it took to make, and each carries its hive, its window and its number. When the last jar of a yield leaves, the season closes rather than buying in from anyone else.
Robinia pseudoacacia
Poured in June from Hive 14 and never heated. It stays liquid for about two years, which is the acacia doing that, not us. Pale, and thinner than you expect.
How to take it A spoon. Bread if you must.
250 g jar ₾ 48
cut comb
A piece of the frame, sitting in the honey it came out of. You chew the wax. Nothing has been done to it at all, which is the point and also the whole recipe.
How to take it Sheep cheese, walnuts.
200 g box ₾ 62
propolis, 30% in alcohol
The resin bees seal the hive with, left in alcohol for six weeks. It tastes like a forest floor and stains everything it touches. Both of those are correct.
How to take it Water, ten drops, winter.
30 ml dropper ₾ 39
from the corbiculae
Scraped from the baskets on her hind legs. Those baskets are called corbiculae, and they are where this whole company got its name. Dry, granular, slightly bitter.
How to take it Yoghurt, or straight, bitter.
120 g jar ₾ 34
cera alba
What is left once the honey is gone. Melted, strained through cloth twice, poured warm into a block. It smells like the inside of the hive for years.
How to take it Candles, salves, wood.
90 g block ₾ 27
The season
63 jars left of 240
One harvest a year, and it closes at zero. Bring the empty glass back and the next jar is filled at four lari less.
